


Sleep like the dead

by Firebog



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, No Plot/Plotless, POV First Person, POV Klaus Hargreeves, Pre-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29960430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firebog/pseuds/Firebog
Summary: A quick slice of life, pre-canon.Klaus needs a ride and crashes Diego's vigilante night.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Number Six | Ben Hargreeves
Kudos: 5





	Sleep like the dead

Thing is, they always forget. They look at me and think, oh great, what's Klaus fucked up on this time? Assuming they actually look at me and don't ignore my existence. The number of times I've skipped merrily through an _am I dead?_ existential crisis is...absolutely normal in this family. Ben can attest to that. 

Anyway, the answer has always been, no,  not dead yet. T he Hargreeve s family is  simply awful.  Everyone one hundred percent self-absorbed. Well, maybe not Vanya, she's always been there with a sandwich and a band-aid. And Diego looks out for Mom  and will usually bail me out . And Luther and Allison look out for each other. And Ben looked out for  me even before he was dead. Five was kind of a prick, but, don't want to speak ill of the probably dead do we?

Ben hates that joke.

What was I saying? Ah, right. They always forget I was running those stairs and  learning the best way to gouge out eyes with the rest of them. Except Vanya, but that goes without saying.

S o really, Diego should be  _thanking me_ , not giving me the  _go home, Klaus, or wherever it is you're sleeping before you get hurt_ speech. Actually, it's less a speech and more angry yelling. Completely unfair. Rude, even. It wouldn't kill him to say, thank you, Klaus, for hitting the bad man over the head with the marble cutting board and punching  the  o ther bad man in the throat before they put an end to my career as a vigilante.

"Hey! Did you hear me? _Get out of here!"_ Diego yells. Again.

Another bad man — well, I assume he's bad and that Diego hasn't gone completely off the deep end.

Diego was really making progress there for a little while, almost a respectable citizen with a unrespectable job in law enforcement. But as the saying goes, one step forward two steps back. Which is just one step sideways to knife wielding psycho.

We really are an awful family.

Anyway, another bad man. Men. There are definitely more than one left in this lovely crime den that Diego thought he'd crash into.

The marble cutting board works wonders for readjusting faces. Two of Diego's bad men are going to need some serious reconstructive rhinoplasty.

Isn't it funny that we call rhinoceros _rhinos?_ Oh no, that nose is charging! Run!

"Klaus, quit fucking laughing and get out!" Diego shouts. He throws his knives. Because of course he does. And bends them into the bad men. Because of course he does. "Why are you even here!?"

"I need a ride!"

Diego makes his _why fucking me?_ face. You would think he couldn't do that in the middle of a fight but you would be surprised. Diego has many talents.

It's all done in less than ten minutes. An average fight, really. People get it into their heads that violence takes a long time, but it's actually rather quick. You shoot someone or throw a knife at them – or crush their face with a marble cutting board – and they generally stop fighting back.

"What the fuck, Klaus? How high are you? You wander into a fight because _you need a ride?_ Just wait by the car." Diego stomps over to me, picking up knives as he goes. He stops in front of me. Looks up and down. "You're hurt."

"You should see the other guy." I have always wanted to say that. It looks cool when the big muscly tough guy says it.  I might not be big and muscly but I've got a far better fashion sense. I could make it edgy. Dark and gritty. That's cool too, right?

Diego yanks up my shirt. He makes that hissing sound that usually precludes bad news. " That needs stitches.  A lot of stitches . See? This is why you're lookout."

"As if you never needed stitches after. Why do my stitches mean I'm look out?" I touch my side, and, ouch, yes, that needs stitches. I run my fingers along the cut. It is...disconcertingly long. I pull my shirt up. Oh. That really does merit the _that's bad_ hissing sound. Maybe I'll just collapse to the floor for a little bit now.

Lucky me that Diego is there to catch me.

"It's not the stitches. It's because you're always high," Diego says as he hauls me up. He hooks one of my arms over his shoulder and half drags me through the crime scene.

It's not true. I'm not  _always_ high. Sometimes I'm drunk too.

Diego shakes his head. "What's so funny?"

Funny? Oh. Oh, yeah, I'm laughing. High and drunk. That's funny. Even funni er , because I'm neither at the moment. It's why I need ed a ride. It's probably best not to tell Diego that. He gets testy about being the chauffeur to drug deals. And has a tendency to leave  the not fun kind of holes in my dealers.  Which means angry dealer-ghosts chasing me around for months trying to get money they can't use.

"Do you wanna go to a hospital or back to my place?" Diego asks.

"Neither, honestly." What I would really like is the pretty rainbow of pills I was planning on buying and/or trading for.

"My place." Diego is like that, always trying to be the leader and make the decisions. It's why he can't get along with Luther. Someone should probably tell him that. Could solve a lot of family issues.

Or maybe they'd finally just kill each other.

God. That would be awful. Three brothers following me around when I'm sober. It's already awkward enough when I dry out after a couple of days and have to ask Ben where I am exactly and who the people in bed with me are.

Diego stuffs me into the car like a sack of laundry. "Don't bleed out back here."

Great advice.

"I'll try not to. But no promises."

The car starts up and vroom vroom,  we 're on  our way to Diego's shithole apartment! Though, I guess I'm not one to talk.  My apartment currently being the fire escape of an abandoned building.

But really, Diego lives in the boiler room of a sketchy gym that hosts dubiously legal fights.  There is  literally a plaque  on his door :  BOILER ROOM. It just screams,  _on Wednesdays I'm a serial killer._

Huh. Technically I guess we're all serial killers. It's only not murder if you're employed by the government.

We should all be in therapy. Dearest dad really fucked us up. Just look at Diego in his weirdo murder suit covered in knives. At least I just hit people in the face in my regular clothes.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Diego says over his shoulder. Tsk, tsk. Eyes on the road, brother. " What t herapy?"

"You're in therapy? " That's surprising. I would have never pegged Diego as the one with healthy coping mechanisms.

"No," Diego sighs. "I'm asking _you_ if _you'r_ _e_ in therapy."

"Why would I be in therapy?" It's not like they have therapists that specialize in traumatic ghost encounters.

"I don't know, maybe rampant alcoholism and addiction? **You** brought it up." Diego sounds exhausted. Maybe from the fight. Maybe from me.

"I did?" Oh. Heh. That's funny. "Have I been talking out loud this whole time?"

"You were laughing about rhinos while you got your side sliced open," Diego says, conveniently forgetting that I actually helped. That I can be a badass too.

"Did you know rhino means nose?"

"No. And why does that matter?"

"It doesn't."

Diego shakes his head and mutters _fuck._ He drives a little bit faster. 

I get hauled out of the car fifteen minutes later less like a sack of laundry and more like a sack of potatoes. There is a lot more blood than what I'm comfortable with coming out of me in one sitting. It's like our childhood days of yore. Don't follow us in, Klaus. Don't get in the way, Klaus. Don't bleed all over the car, Klaus.

Diego unceremoniously drops me onto a chair. He stomps around, presumably looking for something to stop me from bleeding to death, and gives me a running commentary about how I was stupid to wander into his  _thing._

It's nothing I haven't heard a thousand times before. I let my head lull back and stare up at a ceiling full of cobwebs. I can see Ben out of the corner of my eye. That's not good news. Not that I don't love my life-challenged brother, but he's the harbinger of prolonged sobriety.

"What do you want to bet that Diego has never taken a broom over the rafters once since he moved in?"

Ben shakes his head.

"Are you listening?" Diego prods my shoulder.

"Uh huh, I'm a lover, not a fighter." Truth be told I'm not much of a lover either. What does that make me then? An adverb? An indefinite article?

Movement catches my eye. Oh, lovely. Diego's bad men are here finally. I watch them wander around Diego's apartment and try to punch him in the head. I don't acknowledge them. If I talk to them they'll never go the fuck away.

Just have to keep my eyes on Diego until they get bored or I can find something to drink.

"Shirt," Diego says, pulling a second chair over to me. He sets out a bundle of medical supplies as I wriggle out of my blood-damp shirt. He opens a suspicious unmarked green bottle and rips open a package of cotton balls. He douses a cotton ball in whatever is in the bottle.

"I'm not going to give you anything for this," Diego warns me before he swipes the cotton ball over my skin.

It's not surprising. None of my esteemed siblings like to share. Still, no harm in trying, whatever is in the green bottle stings like a bastard. "It's not enabling me when it's a medical procedure."

Diego shakes his head and goes on swabbing away blood. "I don't have anything except booze anyway and I'm not giving you _anything_ with an alcohol content while you're bleeding like this."

" Not even mouthwash?"

"Not even mouthwash."

" The worse part is that you're the fun one."

There might actually be a smile hidden somewhere on that  thing Diego calls a face.  " I am not fun."

" Right. Duly noted. Diego is the fun police."

The thing that might be a smile disappears.

Whoops. Right. We aren't supposed to talk about Diego's whole foray into law-enforcing citizen.

He hands me the cotton ball while he threads the needle.  His stitches are perfect. Our father would be proud that the lesson stuck.  Mom would be proud of Diego's cross stitch. Maybe I'd get points for bringing the canvas. 

"Where are you staying?" Diego asks, as he cleans up the bloody cotton balls.

"Oh, here and there." It never goes over well with Diego to tell him where I'm actually sleeping most mid-afternoons. He gets all stabby with people over the most trivial things.

Diego grumbles and growls. He murder-stalks around his BOILER ROOM apartment. He stomps back over to me with a t-shirt, shorts, and socks. All in black. Obviously. This is Diego after all.

"You can stay here tonight." Diego throws a faded red and green plaid blanket at my head. "But tomorrow I'm driving you back into town and that's it."

I strip down to the tune of Diego yelling _what is wrong with you!?_

A lot of things. Even for our family. You'd think he'd know that by now.

Diego shoves me behind a bookcase that he's pressed into double duty as a privacy screen.  I get dressed in Diego's hand-me-downs. Or should that be hand-me-sideways?  What's the terminology for second-hand clothing from your adoptive brother who's also sort of  one of your six twin siblings?

Forty-two if we're going to be technical about this.

Is there a word for that? Seven is septuplets.  What's forty-three?

"It's not a multiple birth when everyone has different moms," Ben says from his spot in the corner. He could stand anywhere and it wouldn't matter, but having your brother walk through you is weird for everyone involved, observers included.

"Yeah. Right." I take Ben's word for it. He's the smart one. Even if he's dead. "We're brothers from another mother. Not twins from...the same kin?"

" Couldn't rhyme septuplet?" Ben smirks. As if  _ he  _ can rhyme septuplet. I'm fairly certain septuplet doesn't rhyme with anything.

"Do you ever think about the other thirty-six?"  I ask, sitting down on the edge of Diego's bed.

Diego stops his prowling. "What the fuck are you talking about?" He waves his hand. "No.  Don't tell me.  I don't actually care." He picks up the blanket again and shoves it at my chest. "Just go to sleep."

" He's right, you need to rest," Ben adds. I'm always getting ganged up on.

I sight but I don't argue with them. Arguing would mean admitting I can see Diego's bad men. Admitting I can see Ben. Better to pretend I'm sleeping.

"Alright, alright." I pull the blanket around my shoulders. I lie down and do my best sleeping beauty impression. I make for a beautiful corpse awaiting a noble prince if I do say so myself. Funny, how so many stories equate sleeping and death. Guess they don't know that the dead don't sleep.

I crack an eye open, no point in being hilarious if no one is there to witness it.

"No. I don't care what it is. Go to sleep," Diego growls.

"Sure, yeah, I'll just lie here and," I shoot a look at Ben, still tucked into his corner, "sleep like the dead!"


End file.
